Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Impalefection

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Charles Stewart, while in the minority, has made substantial arguments for their view that the term is relatively widely used, and the other opinions don't really address these arguments. Sandstein 21:40, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Impalefection[edit]

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Similar to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CellSqueeze, this seems to be another cell transfection methodology where a single group coined a term and it hasn't caught on that widely. Searching pubmed gives two results with mostly the same authors. On Google I'm mostly just seeing sites mirroring our content. I don't see anything to suggest the topic meets WP:GNG. Ajpolino (talk) 22:21, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Ajpolino (talk) 22:21, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Biology-related deletion discussions. Ajpolino (talk) 22:21, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Looking over the Google Scholar results I see that several different groups of researcher seem to be using the technique and many more research authors have cited the technique when they list mechanisms for getting complex molecules into cells: it's in our list at transfection. The last fact doesn't help build the article, but it does mean the term has seen uptake. From the point of view of notability the article seems on the edge, but if the nom is suggesting this is a neologism, I think that's not consistent with the >70 research works by many authors using the term. It also looks like the same technique is also referred to by the term "nanowire arrays", meaning the search results I gave might somewhat understate the impact of the described technique. I'm leaning against deletion, towards either keep or merge with transfection. — Charles Stewart (talk) 13:10, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note that the same editor who created the article Impalefection added all mentions of it to the Transfection article (1, 2). There's nothing at all wrong with that, but I wouldn't read too much into the fact that it's listed at Transfection. Also I'd oppose merging to transfection, as the other modalities listed there are FAR more commonly used, and sources that discuss physical transfection methods generally (e.g. 1, 2) don't mention it. So I think discussing it in the Transfection article is WP:UNDUE unless I've just missed that it's more widely used under an alternative name. Ajpolino (talk) 18:27, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I've mentioned this AfD at Talk:Transfection, requesting more expert attention. — Charles Stewart (talk) 13:17, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 00:12, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - while the technique has limited uptake, pace the nom, the term has been used by many researchers besides the proposers. The substantial references suffice for SIGCOV and the uptake of the term from researchers making long list of techniques for getting genetic materials into cells show it is not a bad neologism from the point of view of our policy. I'm wondering at the nom only finding two references: even the relatively conservative Semantic Scholar finds far more than that. — Charles Stewart (talk) 11:41, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 08:33, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:04, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - To recap the discussion and provide a little more detail, in the hope that this might help the next would-be closer, there are five key substantial references that document the development and application of the technique: the original paper on carbon nanofibre arrays (McKnight, T. E., Melechko, A. V., Hensley, D. K., Mann, D. G., Griffin, G. D., & Simpson, M. L., 2004. Tracking gene expression after DNA delivery using spatially indexed nanofiber arrays. Nano Letters, 4(7), 1213-1219), which seems to predate the coining of the term impalefection, and the four articles using the term indexed on Semantic Scholar. All of these five papers have many coauthors, but one, T.E. McKnight, occurs in all of them. These citations would reach the SIGCOV criterion by themselves except for the worry about independence. I'm inclined to give these papers a pass from the point of verifiability, since McKnight is only the principal author on one of these five papers, but I can absolutely sympathise with Ajpolino's delete rationale in the part that raises GNG: it seems this may be a place where we simply differ in how we apply the criterion in this grey area. The part of the nom that mentions the broader literature of slight mentions of the topic I don't agree with: the occurrences in the literature seem to be generally lists of techniques for insertion of cell material and while some might come from Wikipedia, I'd really want more evidence that all of these articles are so lazy before accepting this case. I'm generally pretty prone to use our policy against neologisms to reach 'delete' opinions, but this just does not cut it for me. Generally speaking, this material seems well-written and verifiable enough that I want an ATD outcome to this debate, so in the absence of a decent merge target, my !vote is keep. — Charles Stewart (talk) 07:31, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Looks like a basic WP:NEOLOGISM deletion. I don't really see justification in the above mostly monologue to satisfy notability requirements like WP:SIGCOV. KoA (talk) 21:04, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Neologism only used by members of the original team.— rsjaffe 🗣️ 03:07, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.